


The Sun Also Sets (Mark. and Eduardo.)

by ohnvm



Category: Social Network (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-11
Updated: 2011-12-11
Packaged: 2017-10-27 05:34:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/292158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohnvm/pseuds/ohnvm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is just a quiet end of something he didn't think he'd ever have another beginning with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sun Also Sets (Mark. and Eduardo.)

There's surprisingly little to no dramatic scene when it finally happens.

Mark's been waiting for it but that doesn't mean it hurt any less. He doesn't know when he started bracing himself. He thinks maybe he's always been bracing himself even after everything that's been said and done - the reconciliation, the understanding that didn't need words, and the lightest of touches on the back of his neck to ground him from the pull of code.

He would be lying if he says he didn't miss those During. After? Before?

That's another thing. He doesn't know how to separate things with clean-cut timestamps.

It used to be Before Wardo and After Wardo but it's all been muddled because Mark had assumed Before Wardo meant before reconciliation and he had let himself settle with the idea that there will no longer be an After - not now that they've gotten over all those years they had wasted.

Mark thinks they're too old for that now, age worn and weary yet had managed to struggle for a connection that somehow solidified in that easy way it did when they first met.

But Mark's not surprised when he finally hears the words. He hates himself for not doing anything to stop the inevitable (he hates himself. Full stop.) but he knows (just like he knows that he loves Wardo and probably always will) that he can't do anything. Not about this. Because these kinds of things just happen and no one is at fault.

They spent most of their time together fighting for what they have that they somehow forgot who they were fighting for.

That's what Eduardo had said - an explanation of the questions Mark couldn't voice out as he gripped the pristine kitchen counter of _their_ house.

He doesn't agree but he also doesn't raise any arguments. Contrary to popular belief, they are still separate beings with separate opinions and separate emotions.

Sure, the first few months had been spent trying to remind both their lawyers that they work for _them_ not the other way around. At some point, even Dustin and Chris sat them down and had enumerated reasons as to why being Together wasn't A Very Good Idea. Chris cornered him and Dustin cornered Eduardo but they had eventually been appeased albeit not being able to stop themselves from side-eyeing them as if wary of another continental rift.

Mark half-accepted and half-braced himself from anything that might happen. It's not because he doubts Eduardo but because he knows just how high his capability to fuck things up without meaning to is.

And now that it's come, Mark isn't surprised. He just didn't think it'd be soon. He expected some build up of tension and maybe another public laptop-breaking. He didn't think that somehow it would happen on some random morning whilst he is blindly pawing for whatever glass of liquid he could reach in their fridge with hair sticking out ridiculously like it always has when he's just crawled off the bed.

"This isn't your fault, Mark," Eduardo had said so earnestly, as if Mark didn't already know that. As if he hadn't mulled it over several nights when he gets _too happy_ , his subconscious has to pull his feet back on the ground.

Mark feels himself tense before straightening up and shutting the door of their fridge lightly, not at all looking up to where Eduardo is already wearing a suit, ready to leave.

He had expected it to happen but hadn't expected to cry when it finally does. He didn't know he's been crying until Wardo made an aborted hand gesture as if he wanted to wipe the traitorous tears away.

Mark can count the amount of times he actually shed tears after the settlement and if he's being honest, 3 out of 4 of those times were because he had been drunk and nostalgic but Mark hadn't been expecting to cry because of Eduardo _After_ (after _I'm sorry_ , and _I love you_ , and _Stay_. After they've gone past the 'honeymoon phase' and had spent nights just _being_ \- with nights spent kissing and falling asleep. Spent hours fighting over silly things but always always falling back together on their bed by the end of the day.) yet there he is, clad in a pair of boxer shorts he's pretty sure isn't his and a worn sweatshirt he had pulled on before stumbling downstairs to get something to drink.

These things happen, though. People grow old. Some people grow closer and some people grow apart. Some people fall even deeper in love (Mark) and some just fall out of love (Wardo).

These are facts.

He tells Eduardo those in the calmest tone he could muster. He's not angry. Not as he had been when Eduardo closed an account many years back. Because Mark knows they both had somehow matured enough not to do something as petty as saying words they don't really mean just so they could hurt the other.

So when Eduardo had said "I love you, Mark. But I don't think I'm in love with you. Not anymore", it's just what it is: a statement of fact without an underlying intent to wreck him.

Mark just smiles a little (a tiny upward curl on his lips that probably looks as grotesque and as forced as it feels) and nods before reaching up to wipe his own face with the sleeve of his sweater.

He tells Eduardo that he understands (because he does), and if his voice cracks a little, he doesn't try to hide it. There's no use in hiding it from a person who knows him so intimately and whom he knows just the same.

And sure maybe Mark had let himself hope (learned to allow himself to hope that maybe this will last more than he thought it would) enough that he once found himself furrowing his brows over a suit he thought Wardo would look good in for something that maybe resembles a wedding (which made him roll his eyes at himself at that time but only leaves him empty now). But that's just something even a person like Mark couldn't help mulling about. Because he's in love, and he thought maybe Wardo would appreciate it - vows and written proof - because Wardo believed in those.

Eduardo's face crumples a little and Mark knows this is hurting him too. "I'll always be your friend, Mark. I promise. You are my best friend and this doesn't change that."

This is the point where Mark thinks he understands a fraction of what Erica Albright had said that night she broke up with him - of not wanting to be friends, or having any contact.

There's a fraction of him that wants to say _no_ vehemently. A fraction that wants to say _no, not anymore. Not after this_.

But the larger part of him, the one that barely remembers the blur that had been his life after Eduardo left for the first time, wants to cling - to hold on and accept tiny scrounges that Eduardo's willing to give. So Mark just nods because what else can he do? It's either that or lose Eduardo completely like he did before and that's not something he's willing to go through again. Not after everything.

Mark knows Eduardo enough that he's sure Wardo would put some space between them and Eduardo knows Mark enough that he knows Mark would need that space even if he doesn't/wouldn't as for it.

When Eduardo finally walks out the door not carrying anything with him yet (because they aren't rushing into anything and there isn't a big dramatic scene that involves door-slamming and haphazardly chucking clothes into suitcases), Mark gets back to finding breakfast trying to ignore the fact that the house already feels too big, too cold, and too quiet.

Dustin finds him watching TV not 24 hours later - completely bypassing knocking and just punching Mark's security code in before flopping down next on the sofa and offering beer as if he still lived in Palo Alto and not wherever he's trying to promote his own company.

They don't talk, though. They don't need to.

When Dustin asks him (after they consumed all the pizza Dustin ordered and imbibed all the beer Mark kept in his fridge and maybe some more of the hard liquor other companies give Mark as gifts) how he's doing, Mark doesn't know how to reply.

He's hurt, and in love, but he's also appreciative and relieved that they still have friendship to fall back on - that they still have each other (him, Chris, Dustin, and Wardo like they had been originally.)

He's pretty sure Chris is with Wardo now like he had been before. Like Dustin is with him now as he had been before.

But it's different now, he's sure. Lightyears away from the bitterness and the betrayal that shadowed the years following the settlement.

This is just a quiet end of something he didn't think he'd ever have another beginning with. Mark can accept that.

"We'll be okay," Dustin says, sure and somber like the way he gets when he thinks Mark is drunk enough not to call him out on being a sap.

He feels Dustin throw a leg over him.

Mark doesn't push him off, exhausted, and drunk, and maybe just really needing to be comforted by someone who became an expert at it.

Dustin's phone vibrates on the table a while later when Mark's eyelids are getting heavier by the second.

"It's Chris," Dustin whispers after punching a few words on his Blackberry.

Then Mark is being pulled upright and maneuvered upstairs until both Dustin and him fall face flat on the bed in the guest room. "He wants to tell you that we're going to be okay," Dustin mumbles, voice muffled by the duvet with a leg thrown over him once again. "We'll be okay, Mark."

And Mark knows they would be.

Maybe not soon, not in at least a few months filled with the awkwardness that comes along with trying to readjust from Partner to Just Friends.

They'll be okay. He's going to make sure of that.

Mark lets himself sleep.


End file.
